Can You Smell the Nuance?

There's More Gallic brilliance here than you can shake a stick at. ’Recovery’ is sounding worse and worse as an option for the future of Dirigisme, SA:

SANDOUVILLE, France -- Renault SA's factory in this Normandy town is one of the car maker's most unproductive in the world. Yet it has no choice but to keep the assembly line running.

The “justice” part of that one in the great inspired continental minds, is that mass layoffs are not permitted, but operations making the most losses may not be shut down, and the cost of gross alteration is seen as prohibitive with that boot on ones’ neck as well.

Related: the great creative intellects of the Universities, those shining lights and leaders of the future are defining their own justice. Those crazy kids call it “autoréduction”, or instant discount – known by thieves everywhere as the five finger special it’s the new euphemism for rationalized shoplifting. Presumed to be about some Robin Hood tale, the most popular items are electronics, and we all know how the hungry waifs of the welfare state need a USB thumb drive.

The Carrefour in Rennes was invaded yesterday by some 300 students, who invited customers to take their items free of charge, the value of the goods stolen is estimated at €10.000, as reported today by Ouest-France.fr.

"The value is so high because young people were stealing things like DVD players, USB thumb drives, mobile phones, and alcohol," repoerted Ouest-France.fr. The national executive of the Carrefour group has decided to file a complaint against [their organization].

Stragely enough, one heroic tale of liberation actually involved groceries – one report indicating that...

Their carts are chock full of wonderful food: salmon, foie gras, but also pasta, oil and potatoes. They justified their refusal to pay, as reported by Le Parisien:

"It's an automatic requisition which is just in these times of crisis and also allows us to celebrate this percarious New Year’s Eve with dignity."

The place in question is a Monoprix in the Marais district of Paris on Saint-Antoine near Metro Saint-Paul this past December. The groceries (alimentation) section is in the basement. One can only wonder if these brave, generous, and caring college punks availed themselves of the use of the elevator to transport their new-found dignity home. After all, “libre” is far more likely to mean “not in use” than free – in any relevant sense of the word. So by extension the old saw that “if it ain’t bolted down, it’s yours’” has now been redefined to include the stuff on store shelves, and is all part of that drive for social justice.

They sure are hope of man, the leaders of the future, and all that, aren’t they?

They’ve grown up in a society that puts a premium on blurring the lines between institutionalized theft and an honest living, much as they really don’t blink at the notion of corporate welfare, price-fixing, and the creative creation of shortages and living by economic falsehoods.

From another location assumed to be a depriver of goods due to wanting you to exchange cash for their wares. How dare they.